Book of Abraham

[FightingFat]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions, very good and interesting replies I must say!

Bdawg:

First, you are wrong that they have found “the scrolls that Joseph Smith had.” Rather, they found several scraps (not scrolls) representing a small fraction of the papyri Joseph Smith had. Eyewitnesses testimonies establish that JS claimed that a long roll with black and red writing contained the Book of Abraham. However, none of the papyri found fit that description, although some of them may have originally been part of the same roll, but fell off. It was common Egyptian practice to have more than one text on the same roll, as I understand it.

OK I’ve heard this and several other theories about ‘hidden text’ only JS was able to read. It’s possible- but then anything is possible I suppose. It seems to me to be pushing the envelope just a little to far beyond the comfort zone.
Ultimately, as I understand it, JS did provide translations for the three facsimiles, which have turned out to be incorrect. Is this not true?

Bdawg:

Regarding the evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Abraham that I discussed, you can find a lot of it on Jeff Lindsay’s site. He has updated it quite a bit since you read it several years ago.

Right! I’ll go check it out as soon as I’ve finished this!

 

[BDawg]

Hi FF,

FightingFat:

OK I’ve heard this and several other theories about ‘hidden text’ only JS was able to read. It’s possible- but then anything is possible I suppose. It seems to me to be pushing the envelope just a little to far beyond the comfort zone.
Ultimately, as I understand it, JS did provide translations for the three facsimiles, which have turned out to be incorrect. Is this not true?

I’m not an Egyptologist, but here again I think the situation is much more complex than how you put it. On the facsimiles there are a bunch of hieroglyphs, which represented certain things, and possibly had more than one meaning in different contexts. I do know an Egyptologist, though, and he says that he would not translate all the hieroglyphs like JS did, but that a number of them he got stunningly correct. For example, in one of the facsimiles there are four canopic jars with animal heads. JS said they represent different gods who in turn represented the four corners of the earth, or the four cardinal directions, or something like that. Turns out he was right. In another case there is a hieroglyph of a boat that JS said represented the number 1000. Turns out he was right. In another case there is a hieroglyph of a monkey pissing, and JS said that it represents something about time. Turns out he was right. There are more, but I can’t remember them.

So this is what I’m saying. JS got enough “lucky” hits (I mean, who would guess that a boat means 1000?) on the facsimiles (which everyone agrees JS tried to translate,) that I conclude that there is SOMETHING to this. He does not agree across the board with modern Egyptologists, but maybe they are not always right, or do not know all possible meanings of various hieroglyphs. Maybe something totally weird is going on, and nobody has quite figured it out.

I understand if this kind of explanation doesn’t do it for you, but once again, I think if you honestly look at all the evidence you will find plenty of things that are difficult to explain no matter which side you take.

BDawg

 

[FightingFat]

On the contrary, that’s very impressive. I was going to try and seperate out the topics we were discussing into issues and go through them one by one, but I got so hooked on the link you sent me I’ve been reading ever since!

I was especially impressed with this page which I hadn’t seen before

jefflindsay.com/myturn.shtml

Thanks for taking the time to help me with my queries. I need to read a bit more stuff and I’ll get back to you!